The creaking of the upstairs back door
dissolved into bells that belonged elsewhere,
not the dark corridor that led to the water closet.
She could not tell if it was a carnival or a church
where they originated, if it was the light tap of a xylophone
from a schoolhouse music hour or a clanging
call to dinner in a half-ruined but still-palatial mansion.
This was the thought, made of lightning and rain,
when she accidentally struck the gramophone man,
and falling, saw the silvery anklet of a bare-footed girl.
The girl called out something as she left. A deep voice,
but in the staccato words of another language.
The whispers of the shopkeepers
hissed so loud as to drown out all meaning.